dh has just told me he is not happy and not sure if he wants to leave

Hi dh and I have been married 7 years and have had our ups and downs. I have caught him out cheating twice and even though I have taken him back I have kept up my barriers in case it happens again.recently we have been getting on ok we never argue, though rarely talk about anything other than the dc. Today dh told me he doesn't know if he is happy anymore and if he wants to stay. As he feels I have my own life with the children and he wouldn't be missed if he wasn't here. I honestly don't know what to do, he has now gone to work but has taken his wedding ring off. I do love him but we have been together 20 years so surely we maybe won't have as much in common as we used to? I am really scared we are going to fuck our dc up if we separate. Please give me some advice

2anddoneMy h told me that he wasnt happy in October. He left 1 month ago (I finally had enough and got the courage to ask him to leave).

You will see that he has checked out in his head and will get colder and colder towards you. That hurts more than you can imagine.

When he took his ring off I felt a physical pain in my heart.

We had been like you and not argued for the last 2years. I thought it was because we were secure and settled.looking back I can see it was because I had given up.

I too thought that the dc hadnt noticed anything. The 13 yr old ds told me that he didnt think that his df "was really nice" to me and ds (9)asked me "if d had been a good husband would he still be with us?"

Back in October I thought I was going to die without my dh.

5 months later...I'm still alive

My problem was that I didnt have a bottom line. I found it a month ago and now I am working on some self esteem too!

What everyone else says. He has cheated twice before. He's not happy and not sure if he wants to leave so one of the first things he does is whip his wedding ring off?

Sorry but he has left your marriage. He may want to stay in the house and have his domestic servant that's you look after him and his lovely children around until he has his new place to live set up but as soon as it is he is going to be gone before you blink. He has to wait for the next domestic servant and more interesting new sex partner to be ready for that as well though.

Please get yourself to an STI clinic. You know he has cheated twice, you know he can easily be doing it again.

I'm sorry that you are going through this. My XH did the same "I don't feel the same any more, I don't want to be here any more" - he walked out with no prior warning. Later discovered lots of texts etc to OW.

As your H has previous form, it sadly sounds like he is at it again. If he is going to leave anyway, then you can do it on his terms, or you can do it on yours.

I begged my XH not to leave, told him how much I loved him, couldn't believe that he would leave DD, just turned 4yo at the time. None of it mattered as he had checked out as soon as he started falling for OW.

I didn't want my DD growing up without her dad around, but he chose to do that to her.

Go and see a solicitor, go and get advice on benefits etc. You may be surprised at what you can get. You will feel much more confident about the future if you know what you are entitled to and know your rights.

He can choose to be part of the family of you and the DCs or he can choose not to. YOu could call his bluff and tell him you are looking for a job and that means he will have to do x, y and z for the DCs

Right now he is choosing not to join in with you and DCs but somehow making you feel you are to blame. So he is taking the mickey.

Children are not just damaged by arguments. In fact, it is a healthy thing for children to see their parents disagreeing and resolving conflicts of opinion.

Children are of course damaged by unproductive, heated or abusive arguments but they are also damaged by tension, unhappiness in parents and by being given a bad role model of an adult romantic relationship.

If you separate and your husband does what your father did to you and cuts contact, that will be his responsibility and all you can do is to try to fill in the gap and find other loving supportive people to help shape and raise them. You will not be responsible for him being a bad father who doesn't see his children and trying to prevent that is a terrible reason to stay in a relationship that isn't working and will harm you and your children if you stay.

sorry you are going through this. Could you book some family counselling and make it clear to your dh that you want to work on things and that you feel you both need to get to the bottom of things and do what you can about this?

Perhaps it will not be possible to save your marriage if he is just unwilling to act responsibly. I can understand how scared you are. I hope things are going to be alright. It may be that in the long term, you will be better off apart but perhaps right now it doesn't feel like that.

They are 4 and 7, they have never seen us argue as we don't argue. They have also no knowledge of what has happened in the past. My concern of messing them up is based on my df leaving when I was 4 and never seeing him again. Am scared it will happen to my dc

In reality, you'll fuck your children up more if you stay with their father and accept a life of constant infidelity and lack of independence. Fidelity from this man is clearly not an option. Leaving him is.

He's seeing how much crap you will actually put up with. You're supposed to beg him to stay and scurry round doing everything you can think of to please him, while he looks wistfully into the distance and may condescend to eat what you cook or pat you on the head from time to time. What he wants is domestic servicing while he shags around as much as he likes, and he thinks you are sufficiently desperate not to be single that you will provide this.

It's understandable that you're scared of the future but this is no way to live. What's the point in loving someone that not only doesn't reciprocate but screws around into the bargain? Why waste your love on someone as disrespectful and selfish that?

Please get RL support from friends and family. There are legal rules regarding maintenance, housing and parenting for married couples that split up, there is financial help available from the state and life as a single parent can be very rewarding.... certainly more stable than living with someone who shows you no respect.

Poor you, I'm so sorry tell him to leave don't ask him to stay, however weak you feel, you will feel worse if he stays for the wrong reasons. If you want him around, even though he sounds awful tbh, you need to kick him out now to make him realise what he is giving up.